In inventory-oriented software solutions that find use in inventory data objects in various business fields, a data object component manages a set of (inventory) data objects. A computing unit is interconnected with the data object component via an interface. Data objects may be classified into segments according to selectable criteria so that the computing unit can access selected/classified data objects via specific segment access in order to perform certain tasks.
One example of an inventory-related software solution can be found in the field of insurance companies, which use software solutions to manage their insurance contracts and their clients' data. Inventory in this specific example could mean the sum of all insurance contracts and/or the clients of a given insurance company. The data objects describing the insurance contracts and/or the clients are called business objects. A segment is then a subset of business objects of a given business object type. These subsets, i.e., segments, are created by individual assignment or by classifying the business objects according to one or several criteria, such as geographical criteria (e.g., region, county, district), product related criteria (e.g., health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, etc.) or client group criteria (e.g., private client, business client, industrial client). Depending on a given context, a business object can be classified into one or more segments, i.e., belong to one or several subsets. However, within a given context, the relation between the business object and the segment(s) must be unequivocal.
Another example for inventory-related software solutions is in the field of commission systems containing a plurality of commission contracts between a company and its employees or contracting agents.
In order to be able to perform different tasks concerning statistical and evaluational aspects as well as concerning responsibilities and tasks or targets within the organizational structure of a company, it is important that business objects can be easily related to an employee or a contracting agent, or that a relation between a single contract and an inventory (subset) can be created. For example, typical relations can be the responsibility for all life insurance contracts in a given postal code area, the management of all car insurance contracts or the advisory function for all clients with profession physicists in the field of health insurance. It is easily understood by these examples that the segments are not directly created or classified but in connection with a given responsibility or task (“being in charge of”, “managing”, “advisory function”, “contact person” etc.).
In order to be able to create an assignment between a given employee or contracting agent, i.e., the data object of that employee or contracting agent, and a segment, the business data objects in the data object component must contain pointer structures or other suitable reference information. If there are changes to either the business data objects or the employee/agent data objects, the corresponding reference information in the business data object has to be updated, i.e., the data contained in the data object component has to be attended to regularly and reliably. In practice, this is a potential source of malfunctioning as data attendance (or data maintenance) is not always performed in a reliable manner as it is an additional task to be performed by a human operator, and very often there is no direct understanding for the need to perform data maintenance.